Taruru stood within his room for four straight minutes while he looked around. He was so, so tired, but way too scared to actually go to bed and let sleep claim him again, for fear of what his subconscious would show him this time. Moving slowly to drag out the process, he moved over to his bed, sat on it, and then turned to his music player, which was between his headboard and the wall. There was a modest stack of CDs by the side of it, containing a whole array of genres. Considering carefully, he decided on a quiet indie album that would hopefully lull him into a dreamless sleep.

Setting it in the player, he lay on top of the covers, in no way intending to turn out the light in his room and simply stared at the ceiling, drinking in the calming sounds of the band that was playing, some soft saxophone joining the chorus, actually doing well to relax him, and he really felt as though he was going to drift off for a moment. He lay in this stupor for about twenty minutes, before realising that track five hadn't started, and track four ended five minutes ago.

Out of curiosity, he sat up and turned to the player, which only had a tiny digital screen. The screen was made up of little red LEDs, and at this moment in time, they were all on at once. Obviously a malfunction.

Taruru reached down to unplug the device before he heard something.

"Wait!"

Taruru sat bolt upright and looked around. Who had said that? The voice was familiar…

"Taruru, it's me!"

Taruru glanced at his CD player. He noted the disk was still spinning through the transparent plastic lid.

"Please say you can hear me"

Taruru shook his head slightly; not wanting to even question what he knew was happening. He was just told that Tororo never existed. How could his voice be coming out of the player's speakers?

"Tororo?"

"Yes, it's me"

Taruru swallowed. Tororo's tone sounded grave, and a little scared. He didn't know what to say, what to ask, whether or not this was a dream, or a hallucination… he didn't know anything anymore.

"Taruru you have to stay out of your room"

The blue frog observed the CD player, not moving or talking. Did Tororo know something about his dreams, and what the hell was happening at this moment?

"It's not safe, you have to leave"

"What do you mean?"

Taruru detected a tiny, almost inaudible hitch of breath from the player's speakers. He waited in agonising silence for what must have been at least a few solid minutes before he got another response.

"Leave now. Move slowly. Do NOT turn around" was the tiniest whisper Taruru heard from his speakers.

"Tororo…" Taruru responded just as quietly, tilting he head a little to the right.

"Taruru please don't turn around"

Turning to look back at the player for a moment, Taruru was frozen to the spot. What the hell should he do? His CD player wasn't portable, and if he unplugged it to take it with him, there was no guarantee that Tororo would somehow still be in it.

Also, he didn't like the tone Tororo used with his instructions. What exactly was behind him…?

Whipping his head round without a warning, Taruru screamed at the plastic face just before his own. He collapsed onto his bed and backed to the wall, skating violently, while he took in the appearance of the thing that had been right behind him.

It looked like another mannequin, but it had a much more organic feel to it. Taruru could tell it was still made from cheap plastic, but it felt as though it had a real presence. It was bent over in a way that meant it would have been hovering over Taruru so close that they were almost touching. It had its head tilted in a curious way that made it look as though it was listening in on something. But probably the most unnerving thing about it was that it was painted in a rather realistic manner to resemble Tororo almost exactly, the only difference being that it didn't seem to have any facial features; although the glasses propped on its face may well have been hiding eyes. It was also wearing the baseball helmet that Tororo always wore.

Taruru moved his lips in order to form a question, but no sounds left his mouth.

"I told y-you not to looooooooooook" Came the minor scold from the CD player, which was now overheating as though angry, causing a few odd distortions in Tororo's voice. Taruru didn't make another sound as he briskly slid along the wall, not taking his eyes off the mannequin for one second, trying as hard as possible not to blink, until he was definitely outside his room.

Taruru choked slightly, tears forming and cascading down his cheeks again. Just what the hell was happening to him and why wouldn't it stop? Was this some kind of elaborate set up? Or was he truly losing his mind? Taking a few deep breathes; he waited to regain his composure before thinking about the next course of action to be taken. He was most definitely not going back into his bedroom. He'd gotten the point. But he didn't know what else to do. He briefly thought of returning to Pururu, but that thought was quickly banished. This was clearly something beyond Pururu's control. He would have to find his leader for this.

Turning to face the direction in the hall that would take him to Garuru's office, he set off walking, hugely relieved that the corridor was no longer never ending like it had been in his dream. The relief was short lived however; as he found that he couldn't stop outside of the door. He just couldn't. Even if he took the tiniest step forward he would somehow pass it, and even standing right by where the door was and reaching with his arm, the handle just seemed to be out of reach, despite the blatant closeness of it. He continued this fruitless task for a good ten minutes before giving up and trying another method.

"Boss? You in there? It's an emergency!"

He waited, and was met with only silence. Putting his head to the wall to listen, he couldn't detect any movement whatsoever. He waited a while, hoping that he would eventually hear something, but decided to eventually stop when the only thing to greet his ear drums was a slow, steady heartbeat gradually increasing in volume. He could only conclude that it was his own heart he was hearing – the silence was so prominent now that he could hear even the tiniest of sounds. Sighing heavily, he turned again, and passed his room in the other direction. He kept walking until he eventually bumped into Zoruru again; the cyborg leaning solemnly against a wall, looking as though he may have been meditating.

"Have you seen Garuru?" Taruru asked simply. Zoruru glanced his way before answering.

"In his office like always, didn't you check?"

"I can't get in"

Zoruru rolled his single eye and gave an exasperated sigh.

"There isn't a lock on his door. Didn't you knock or something?"

"I couldn't knock"

Zoruru frowned, and Taruru could tell this wasn't worth the effort.

"Look, forget it. Maybe you could tell him I'm leaving, I need to get out of here"

Zoruru relaxed a little and nodded slightly, showing he understood, before shooting off. Taruru continued down the hall, towards the room containing the different escape pods that could be used as a means of transporting a single member away from the ship. When he approached it, however, it seemed that the door wouldn't budge. Inspecting the door momentarily, Taruru found that there simply wasn't a room behind it. The gap between the door and the frame revealed only the rest of the wall surrounding it.

Taruru was sick of this. Now someone – or something – whatever was the cause for this was denying him any means of escape? Taruru felt more than hopeless. How long was this going to last? What was he supposed to do? Was he going to die or something?

"Private first class"

Hearing the familiar tone brought a huge wave of relief over him, but regardless, he turned and saluted to his platoon leader.

"Sir, yes sir!"

The imposing older frog simply stared him down for a few moments, as if trying to work out what was troubling the normally bubbly younger member of the platoon.

"Chief Medic Pururu tells me that your nightmares and hallucinations are becoming much worse; to the point where they are causing your mental state to deteriorate. She said you were utterly convinced that there was a fifth member to the platoon" He enquired, watching Taruru carefully.

"You don't remember Tororo either, do you sir?" Taruru sighed sadly "I was just about to ask you if I would be allowed to take some sick leave for a while – just so my mind can sort itself out"

"What are you scared of?"

The question was worded so strangely; the tone so peculiar, that Taruru stared his leader in the eye in confusion. He looked down again and went over what he was scared of. He was mainly scared of his own mind, it seemed, and Pururu just couldn't help him now. Didn't she tell their leader this information?

"Sir I-"

"There's no need to be afraid, Taruru. No-one's going to hurt you"

Taruru backed away from his leader ever so slightly. There wasn't a hint of irony in his voice, but again, his tone was unusual, almost predatory sounding. And why hadn't he called him by his rank; but his first name? They weren't particularly points to be that scared about, but the wording, combined with the tone and that frankly terrifying look on his face, was very intimidating indeed.

"I know… I trust you" Taruru said quietly, the end of the sentence almost feeling like a question. Did he really trust his captain? He was leaning more and more towards the 'no' option as the smirk on his leaders face grew a small amount.

"That is good. You should rest, Taruru. You'll need all the sleep you can get" was the quiet, very challenging reply from the lieutenant before he spun on his heel and walked in the opposite direction.

Taruru swallowed, flicking trials of cold sweat from off is forehead. There was something very, very wrong with his leader, but there was no way he was going to say anything about it. Not right now, anyway.

Instead, he decided to look for Zoruru again. He realised now that the only time he had felt safe through this whole ordeal was when Zoruru was nearby. Zoruru was a bad-ass, super stealthy cyborg. How could he not feel safe around him?

Smiling slightly at this newfound source of protection, he made his way fairly jovially throughout the halls of the ship before coming upon the hallway that normally would have lead past Tororo's door and into the hall containing Zoruru's room.

Holding back a gasp of surprise, his eyes widened at the sight of Tororo's door, right where it belonged, the symbol painted on it and all. Relieved tears pooled at the corners of Taruru's eyes as he began to slowly approach the door, smiling even wider as he heard the unmistakable sounds of power tools, and the faint humming of computer monitors. Maybe he'd just woken from another bad dream, and he'd been sleepwalking through it. Quite frankly, he didn't care – he wasn't insane, Tororo WAS a real person!

Pushing the door open, the large goofy grin fell slightly as he attempted to work out what exactly he was seeing.

Tororo was in there all right – but he wasn't working on any of the machines. He was clipped to a large, complicated looking slab of machinery, restrained from any and all movement by large, steel shackles. He seemed scared, but was unable to do anything but whimper thanks to the very tight shackle secured around his neck. There was only a single light hanging in the room, and it shone dimly right over where Tororo was trapped.

Hearing the sound of movement, Taruru ducked out of the way, quite easily finding a hiding spot behind several shards of broken machinery. Walking in to view was none other than Zoruru. However, something about the atmosphere in the room, and the look of sheer terror that passed over Tororo's face when he made his appearance prevented Taruru from revealing himself and approaching them.

He watched silently as Zoruru fumbled around in various piles of equipment on the desk before finding a small tin of what appeared the be powdered charcoal. Swiping his thumb through it, he carefully and precisely drew a line directly down the centre of Tororo's body, starting at the top of the head and ending at the bottom of his pelvis. Taruru had a vague idea what was going to happen next, but he prayed that he was wrong.

"I apologise, Tororo" Zoruru hissed quietly, almost gently, to Tororo. Taruru listened extra carefully, as he couldn't hear too well from his current position, and he'd be damned if he moved.

"It's really nothing personal. You were just the easiest to subdue"

The tadpole whimpered, and Zoruru leaned back slightly, folding his arms.

"It certainly is convenient that we're all the same dimensions, isn't it? You taught me that"

Hot tears started pouring from Tororo's eyes, and Taruru felt a vicious tug at the sight, felt a large compulsion to help him, but he was afraid of making things much worse – whatever was happening.

"I just can't take it anymore, you know. I'm sure you understand. If it wasn't for you, after all, I wouldn't be here right now… you really have taught me a lot, Tororo, and know that I do appreciate everything you've done, but I just have to do this"

There was a piercing 'shink' sound as the cyborg unsheathed the pristine blade from within his mechanical arm. As he lined it up above Tororo's head, Taruru absolutely knew what was going to happen, and at the same time knew it was too late to act.

"I just want to be whole again" was the last whisper, before the blade was brought down, quickly and cleanly slicing the young hacker in half, not even allowing the poor boy to scream. Taruru covered his own mouth and thought about sneaking to the exit, but the fear of being caught and his own morbid curiosity kept him pinned to the spot.

He watched in frozen horror as Zoruru dragged both halves of Tororo's remains to a table, and performed a very long, arduous, impossible operation which involved taking off his entire metal half and trading it with Tororo's left side.

By the end of the horrific ordeal, there stood Zoruru, completely alive and well with his new, mismatched organic left side, fusing the last parts of his metal side to what was left of Tororo's cleaved corpse.

In a strange, mutilated tone of voice that was unrecognisable as Zoruru or Tororo, the former cyborg whispered something about not wishing death upon anyone, and used a large machine to send thunderous jolts of electricity through Tororo's half mechanical corpse, somehow causing him to regain consciousness and return to life, almost like some twisted version of Frankenstein's monster.

The young, new cyborg lifted himself from the table and surveyed his surrounding's in confusion, the tiny, red cybernetic eye implanted into an empty eye socket surveyed the room for a few moments before looking upon his mismatched 'creator'

"It's over now, Tororo, it's okay" came the quiet, distorted vocalisation from the freakish mutant that used to be Zoruru.

Taruru could only stand a few minutes of watching Tororo observe what had happened to him in horror and despair for a few moments before he had had enough and silently evacuated the room.

Closing the door behind him, he blinked, and was now on the floor in his room, apparently having fallen from his bed. He looked around for a while, before allowing himself to relax. So he HAD had another dream. He didn't allow himself any real relief however, as he quickly got up and darted from the room, not noticing that there were now two familiar looking mannequins positioned right behind where his door met the wall.

He ran as fast as he could down the halls. Tororo's room was gone again. He kept running, and let out a dry sob at what he saw.

Zoruru's door was gone, too.

A/N

Daaaaaaaaaaaayum this was typed up quickly. I'm so happy, my head was just CRAMMED with inspiration, and I genuinely had quite a bit of motivation to do this too!

IF any of you have good memories and have been following not only my literature but also my art, you will notice that the plot to this episode is actually based on a strange, recurring sort of 'plot daydream' I kept having that I first illustrated and spoke about last year (thought the idea was one I'd had for a long while before then) in the description of an image called 'Delerium', which you can find on my DA page (linked on my profile)

So I thought 'Welp, I'm doing a horror story, might as well drop it in and see how it goes' XD

Just so you know, this fic prolly won't really be that long, but it might get finished faster than my other fictions (ie actually get finished, like FBOFW from back in the day XD)

Hope you like dis :3